Beijing vendor controls not enforced

Official research has found that tobacco vendors are sited within 100 meters of more than a quarter of Beijing primary and high schools, in violation of the city’s tobacco control regulation, according to a Xinhua News Agency story.

When a panel overseeing law enforcement on behalf of the Beijing Municipal People’s Congress – the capital’s legislature – checked the capital’s 1,570 schools, it found many of the vendors had failed to display warnings about the harm caused by smoking and had not observed the ban on selling tobacco products to juveniles.

Supervision and law enforcement bodies should co-ordinate more effectively to put a halt to vendors flouting the law, said Sun Kanglin, vice head of the municipal legislature’s standing committee.

Beijing, home to more than four million adult smokers, introduced new controls on June 1 last year that included an indoor public-places smoking ban that took in workplaces and public transportation.

The controls included, too, a ban on tobacco sales within 100 meters of kindergartens, primary and high schools, and other children’s centers.

A survey by the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control found that 7.0 percent of primary school students and 13.8 percent of high school students polled had tried smoking in 2015.